Gunmen hold hostages in Pakistan army headquarters
By ASIF SHAHZAD, Associated Press Writer Asif Shahzad, Associated Press Writer – 5 mins agoRAWALPINDI, Pakistan – Militants held several security officers hostage inside an intelligence wing of the army headquarters Saturday after they and others attacked the complex in an audacious assault on Pakistan's most powerful institution.The attack, which left at least 10 people dead, was the third major militant strike in Pakistan in a week and came as the government was planning an imminent offensive against Islamist militants in their strongholds in the rugged mountains along the border with Afghanistan.It showed that the militants retain the ability to strike at the very heart of Pakistan's security apparatus despite recent military operations against their forces and the killing of Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in a CIA drone attack in August.An army statement said more than two assailants were holding several officers hostage in the "security office building" inside the heavily fortified complex close to the capital. The army uses that term to refer to the headquarters of either the military intelligence or the country's premier spy agency, the Inter Services Intelligence.
Can the Taliban fight a three-front war or is there much more in play here than Taliban or al-Qaeda? We know the answer to that but it's almost verbotten to observe that Arabs are training militants anywhere they can. How many young Saudis have flocked to the NW territories? I don't know but the zeal for jihad is still there. These people are very busy in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the horn of Africa and with the tide seeming to turn in Afpakistan, the young hotheads of the Islamic whirled may smell blood in the water.
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ReplyDeleteThink of the fun we'll have speculating on what the Jihadis will target first when they take control of the nuclear-tipped rockets.
ReplyDeleteWIO will be hacking 'Rat's online banking to moniter if he's sending bribes for them to toast you know Joo, er who.
ReplyDeleteMuchas gracias. Can use all the help I can get.
ReplyDeleteTypo noted and corrected. See anything else?
Trouble Ahead.
ReplyDeleteTo set the record straight and move on to more productive tasks, I have to dredge this up.
ReplyDeleteViktor quoted me from midday Wednesday:
Linear responded:
Shame on you, Allen.
Have you no modesty?
Originally, those words had immediately followed a Rufus comment critical of Allen's noting the disproportion between Jewish accomplishments and Jewish population.
Allen: [After quoting several prize catagories won by Jews]...To repeat, about 0.25% of the world's population is Jewish.
Rufus: And, Allen, it's because of posts like that that the percentage is liable to go down.
Don't you realize how much damage you do with that type of comment?
...
Linearthinker: Shame on you, Allen...
Have you no modesty?
My comments were intended as sarcasm directed at Rufus in defense of Allen's observation. I'm still curious about what Rufus meant by his the percentage is liable to go down remark, but not curious enough to want to see this pissing contest continue.
As to the discussion that followed, I leave that to others to whom it may be of interest.
Doug: Think of the fun we'll have speculating on what the Jihadis will target first when they take control of the nuclear-tipped rockets.
ReplyDeleteThe irony will be when Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack Obama establishes (in the radioactive afterglow of a burning Tel Aviv, Islamabad, and Pershawar) the "Obama Doctrine" which consists of collective nuclear punishment against an entire nation if that nation's government is so lax as to allow criminal elements to seize control of their WMDs.
The Jihadi already have those Paki nukes, doug.
ReplyDeleteYou're watching theater, now.
Commotion to distract the audience from the realities of the situation.
A raid, by a squad of dead-enders, is just a show, not a threat to the regime of either the civilian government or the military. It is definately no threat to the security of those missiles or their prospective payloads.
Those are already in the possession of the jihadi of Pakistan. The "keepers of the faith", the Pakistani military.
Our premier allies in the "War on Terror", such as it is.
ReplyDeleteObama says his Nobel Peace Prize is a "call to action"...General McChrystal certainly hopes so.
ReplyDeleteWe took care of them Jihadis in Afghanistan back in '01, 'Rat.
ReplyDeleteYou know that.
Jeesh.
A Dogged Taliban Chief Rebounds, Vexing U.S.
ReplyDeleteMullah Muhammad Omar’s prospects seemed bleak in 2001.
Now, he leads an insurgency that has gained ground in much of Afghanistan against U.S. and NATO forces.
Pakistan militants hold troops hostage after attack on army HQ
ReplyDeleteSix soldiers die in gun battle as terrorists strike for third time in a week.
The brazen attack on one of the most secure areas of the country in the middle of the day, and the taking of hostages, shows a new level of audacity from the militants. It is the third major militant strike in Pakistan in a week and was carried out as the army prepares a major offensive against the militants in their northwestern stronghold of South Waziristan on the Afghan border.
Pakistani media said that the Taliban had claimed responsibility for the attack, and the interior minister, Rehman Malik, said the assaults had strengthened the government's resolve to launch the offensive. "We have been left no other option except to go ahead to face them," he told Dawn Television.
It will be interesting, watching NATO beak up on the rocks of Afghanistan.
ReplyDeleteWonder how they'd have fared against the Russians?
It would have been a real show, at the Fulda Gap, but ...
Both the Warsaw Pact and NATO break up in the rocks of Afghanistan, there's a message there, better believe it.
Truth speaking to the power of both military industrial complexes, in the "real" whirled.
My Antidote?
ReplyDeleteRadio Margaritaville
Currently Playing Concert in new Philly Stadium, Playoff Time, 2005.
It would have been SO inhumane to have bombed them back in '03, 'Rat.
ReplyDelete...like we told em.
Some counseled agin it.
I guess Long Wars are Compassionate Wars.
What "action" is that, Ms T?
ReplyDeleteThe McCrystal Plan is a recipe for failure.
It demands 500,000 troops, in total, to succeed. With 300,000 or so being Afghani. That does not have a serious possibility of occurring. Without that Afghan keystone, the "Plan" cannot succeed.
The Pentagon, the career military, is setting Obama up to fail. As trish has said, they are of the Republican wing of the Federal Socialists, at heart.
They believing, in their heart of hearts, that the Leviathan will march on. Trapped inside a bubble of their owning making.
Where the conga line sets the pace.
Conga Long Liners
ReplyDeleteDepletin the Stock
I'm blamin Climate Change, myself.
ReplyDeleteDR, right with you on that. If Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for doing nothing, I say we give him one in 2010, 2011, and 2012.
ReplyDeleteIn Mexico, they have to worry about the Narcos terrorizing and buying off the Army troops like they did the law.
ReplyDeletePakis probly immune, to that, being religious folk.
Oh, those Mexicans are religious folks, too, doug.
ReplyDeleteAnother branch of the Abrahamic tree of Zoro Mastery, Roman Catholics.
Hush now!
ReplyDeleteMs T is in attendance.
You know how careful we are about folks religious traditions
here @ The Bar.
Jamaica Dogsled Team
ReplyDeleteThe only dry land sled dog racing team in the Caribbean sponsored by Jimmy Buffett, also a dog sled tour by Chukka Caribbean Adventures.
Pronounced"SHAKA" like it's properly spelled by the Hawaiian Congregation.
Dodgers Sweep.
ReplyDeleteTommy Swoons.
Coming Soon to a Theater Near You, If You Demand It
ReplyDeleteIf you have not yet heard of the horror movie “Paranormal Activity,” you will soon.
It is about to become the first major studio film to be released nationwide as the result of online requests from the public.
Doug said...
ReplyDeleteHush now!
Ms T is in attendance.
You know how careful we are about folks religious traditions
here @ The Bar.
Doug, no problem, I was raised Catholic but I can't very well partake of the Body and Blood of our Eucharistic Lord with the same mouth that dined at the "Y" the previous Saturday night.
Cannoneer No. 4:
ReplyDeleteThe Guns of Constantinople
What finally emerged from Orban’s foundry once the molds had been knocked off was “a horrifying and extraordinary monster.” It was 27 feet long.
The barrel, walled with 8 inches of solid bronze to absorb the force of the blast, had a diameter of 30 inches, enough for a man to enter on his hands and knees and designed to accommodate a stone shot weighing something over half a ton.
Only a very rich sovereign could afford such a weapon. It’s very existance was a master stroke of psychological warfare.
We all have our crosses (or Y's) to bare.
ReplyDeleteXX XY
ReplyDeleteOrban was big into compensation.
ReplyDeleteGreat article on the bombardment of Constantinople, Doug.
ReplyDelete1453, who would have known?
Didja ever read Vern's from the Earth to the Moon?
ReplyDeleteBest I can remember it was a giant canon.
G-Forces might be a little hard to bear.
Easy Money
ReplyDeleteVerne's Cannon?
ReplyDeleteMississippi Boy makes good, Rufus:
ReplyDeleteJimmy Buffett was born to James Delaney "J.D." Buffett Jr. and Mary Loraine "Peets" Buffett in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Buffett spent part of his childhood in Mobile, Alabama.[1] As a boy in grade school, he attended St. Ignatius School. He later lived in Fairhope, Alabama, considered by Buffett his "Home Town" during a 2001 concert.
"The Hang Out Gang"
By: Jimmy Buffett, Buzz Cason
1971
The tour bus passed here yesterday
Exciting all the fools who pay
To see the naked lady in our yard
The hang out gang is back in town
Rumor has it going 'round they brought back
Four new groupies and a St. Bernard
We're peaceful and abiding cats some call Gypsies
Some call brats but bare feet don't tear streets up like their bus
Chorus:
All we was doing' was a hangin' and little Koochie was sangin'
Mama I'm guilty of a hangin' out
I know it's a shabby old building but after all ain't we God's children
And Lord it's a good place for hangin' out
The fast approachin' local heat was poundin' out the southwest beat
When they came upon Koochie in our yard
She smiled sir I meant no harm just a little suntan on my arm
They wound up takin' in our St. Bernard
It didn't have a tag ya'll
Chorus:
All we was doing' was a hangin' and little Koochie was sangin'
Mama I'm guilty of a hangin' out
I know it's a shabby old building but after all ain't we God's children
And Lord it's a good place for hangin' out
Now you hang with me and I'll hang with you and we'll hang out
'Til we both turn blue mama I'm guilty of a hangin' out
Chorus:
All we was doing' was a hangin' and little Koochie kept sangin'
Mama I'm guilty of a hangin' out
I know it's a shabby old building but after all ain't we God's children
And Lord it's a good place for hangin' out
All we was doin' was a hangin' and little Koochie kept sangin'
Mama I'm guilty of a hangin' out
-- Spoken (Dialogue):
"Yeah, they moved up there about a month ago. Fixed up that little cabin on the ridge. They really them long hairs? Well, Homer seen 'em.
Homer seen how long it was.
Still reckon I seen it.
They a bunch of weirdos.
One of them had a little instrument looked like a mandolin. Why Lord, they might freeze to death up there this winter.
Well.
Homer, turn that radio down."
I'll get pilloried for the simplicity of this, but fuck it, the Republic is in danger.
ReplyDeleteIn OCT of 2001 we had an indigenous force in AFG, suitcases of Ben Franklins and B-52s and B-1s full of JDAM and dumb-bomb goodness.
The Taliban got their asses handed to them in two weeks.
Then it was time to hand out toothbrushes, Betty Friedan books and 7-11 franchises.
WTF happened?
The turning point for the Northern Alliance was when the Iron Bombs began to fall from the '52's.
ReplyDeleteSeemed to convey a message like:
"Your number is up if you hang around long."
Funny how effective that old technology was.
WTF happened?
ReplyDelete---
'Rat sums it up:
"The Pentagon, the career military, is setting Obama up to fail.
They believing, in their heart of hearts, that the Leviathan will march on. Trapped inside a bubble of their owning making.
Where the conga line sets the pace."
A dozen guys on horses, and a couple of dozen in SUV's managed to avoid getting caught in
ReplyDelete"The Bubble"
The special forces guys were talking about Big Army losing the population in '01.
ReplyDeleteRummy had a quick in and out strategy for both Afghanistan and Iraq.
ReplyDelete(Trying to push Ledeen out of 1st place in Trish's estimation.)
Notice I did not say, "mind."
Rummy may have been about getting in and getting out of Afghanistan, but our Commander and Sheik wants to stay for 100 years.
ReplyDelete